Malecon musings

Geez-- next time it would be good to focus on the sea - with the waves crashing up againt the lava spits. I go there pretty often early in the morning when the runners are out and sit and meditate. There is a strange sort of quiet there, even after the traffic gets moving at 8 am. You can sit down by the water, sit in the grass, and somehow not even see the trash or the homeless people.

Now I would not go down there at night, in the dark -- although they seem to be building new structures on the water's edge which promise to be a park - with some odd sort of structures that look like the entrance to the Metro... but who knows?

Now actually - while one could never say that the water is clean -- it is pretty muddy now from the rains. You can see the mud churnned up for almost a half a mile out now if you get a look at it from a high floor or a roof top. But in good weather, while indeed there is the ubiqitous plastic trash, there is a fresh breeze that comes in from Venezula and the sea is full of refreshing negative ions. There is even a little beach where the kids go swimming -- no, I would not, but they do.

It was really sweet of those poor folks to actually offer you something to eat, wasn't it?

it is just a matter of attitude adjustment, really, living here.

good luck with that

thats one of the main reasons i dont like el malecon. those people you saw most likely weren't homeless they were just fishing or something. i cant stand that every 2 minutes someone has to ask for money. and they always seem to ask you first if you speak English, i just say no but they still come up with a story so you can feel sorry for them.

last week my dad told me that they were inaugurating this little park so he took us there. we saw it in the day and it had these stalls that were empty, seems like they're going to put some businesses in there. so then we go at night thinking there was going to be more people. when we got there it was pitch black with no one there. so we parked up front, and this guy comes up and tells us hes going to watch our car and if we needed him to clean it (i hate when they do that). we decided to walk around, and we asked the guy watching the park why aren't the lights on he's like " yeah well they don't really work... apparently they're broken". so we keep walking and this guy ask us if we want to buy some beer, we're like "no thanks" but he kept following us around with his cooler for the whole time. then we just left.

during the daytime el malecon is really nice, when its sunny and stuff, but you will run into homeless people etc. still, you cant really let that bother you so much because you run into those people everywhere you go here.

I have heard that there is a big reconstruction of the Malecon underway -- evidence the new stands etc.. I certainly hope that they install pedestrian activated stop lights so that we can cross the Malecon without fear. Yesterday, I was lucky enough to find a police officer who was brave enough to escort me.... but sometimes I have had to stand on the center line, with traffic whizzing by on both sides, waiting for a gap '' EVEN THOUGH I was on painted pedestrian cross walks........ A few more police and some tickets might start to educate the drivers.


There are lots of us who live in the neighborhood who would use the park a lot more often IF WE could actually get to it without risking our necks!

I have a friend who lives across from Mirador Sur and she has the same problem crossing Anacaona.........

You have to Realize

mountainannie said:

I have heard that there is a big reconstruction of the Malecon underway -- evidence the new stands etc.. I certainly hope that they install pedestrian activated stop lights so that we can cross the Malecon without fear. Yesterday, I was lucky enough to find a police officer who was brave enough to escort me.... but sometimes I have had to stand on the center line, with traffic whizzing by on both sides, waiting for a gap '' EVEN THOUGH I was on painted pedestrian cross walks........ A few more police and some tickets might start to educate the drivers.


There are lots of us who live in the neighborhood who would use the park a lot more often IF WE could actually get to it without risking our necks!

I have a friend who lives across from Mirador Sur and she has the same problem crossing Anacaona.........

Click to expand...

Most of the drivers have no idea or don't care about the painted cross walke, this also included the police. As they don't mean anything they should save the paint. Do have a taxi driver that will stop for somebody in the cross walk on boliver across from the park but think thats only because he does not have enough speed up yet to make a clean job of it. But feel your pain I also live by the malecon and would like to be able to cross it at less than a dead run.